"With the position that we're in we need to find a way every night to rally for two points and that's the start of it," said Ryan, who is now 6-for-8 in the shootout this season. "Now we need to get ready for a different test two days from now."

Ryan Dzingel also scored his first NHL goal and Craig Anderson made 38 save for the Senators (26-26-6), who will host Carolina on Thursday.

Under siege by one of the city's worst snowfalls in history the game was played in front of an announced crowd of 15,893, but in reality only about half of that showed up.

The Senators fell behind early, but seemed to get better as the game progressed.

'I didn't think we had our A game. We had some guys with the flu ... and found a way to get two points and that's huge.'- Senators head coach Dave Cameron on Tuesday's 2-1 shootout win over Buffalo

Anderson was the difference for much of the game, including a huge save on Jack Eichel with 15 seconds remaining in overtime to force the shootout.

"I didn't think we had our 'A' game," said Senators coach Dave Cameron. "No excuses, but we had some guys with the flu, some guys we weren't sure were going to play and they came in and found a way to get two points and that's huge. They battled and stayed with it."

Anderson was the only reason the game remained tied after 40 minutes as Buffalo outshot Ottawa 18-9. He made a number of big saves to keep the Senators in this game.

Once again Ottawa gave up the first goal as Eichel made a brilliant behind the back pass to Moulson who beat Anderson short side at the six-minute mark of the first.

The Senators tied the game just over a minute later as Dzingel whacked away at a rebound and finally got it past Lehner for his first NHL goal.

The Sabres were without Evander Kane as he was suspended for the game after missing practice Monday.

Nick Paul made his NHL debut, he was the sixth player to do so this year for Ottawa.

The Senators rewarded fans who braved poor road conditions to make it to the game by offering 50 per cent off an upcoming game and a free ticket to those who were unable to attend due to the weather. Nearly 50 centimetres of snow fell in Ottawa on Tuesday.

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